Web-based Systems Development: Analysis and Comparison of Practices in Croatia and Ireland Michael Lang 1 & Dijana Plantak Vukovac 2 1 Business Information Systems Group, Cairnes School of Business & Economics, National University of Ireland, Galway. Michael.Lang@nuigalway.ie 2 Department of Information Systems Development, Faculty of Organization and Informatics, University of Zagreb,Varazdin, Croatia. Dijana.Plantak@foi.hr Abstract: The “dot.com” hysteria which sparked fears of a “Web crisis” a dec- ade ago has long subsided and firms established in the 1990’s now have mature development processes in place. This paper presents a timely re-assessment of the state of Web development practices, comparing data gathered in Croatia and Ire- land. Given the growth in popularity of “agile” methods in the past few years, a secondary objective of this research was to analyse the extent to which Web de- velopment practices are guided by or otherwise consistent with the underlying principles of agile development. 1. Introduction A decade ago, the sudden and frenetic growth of the newborn World Wide Web caused considerable apprehension within academia. Murugesan et al [20] spoke of “a pressing need for disciplined approaches and new methods and tools”, while Oinas-Kukkonen et al [22] claimed that “systematic analysis and design method- ologies for developing Web information systems are necessary and urgently needed among practitioners”. Thus began a flurry of academic activity that be- came known as the “Web Engineering” movement, and many methods and tech- niques specific to Web/hypermedia design were proposed (see [19]). During the peak years of the Web Engineering movement (circa 1998 to 2002), a substantial number of empirical studies of Web-based systems development were published in the academic literature. However, very few studies of commer- cial Web design practices have since appeared. After the abatement of the pre- Y2K “dot.com” hysteria, there ensued an industry shake-up whereby many of the firms engaging in shoddy or casual practices were found wanting and did not sur- vive. Development technologies have advanced substantially in recent times, and many Web development firms originally established in the mid- to late-1990’s have at this stage attained process maturity. It is therefore a timely juncture to once again look at the state of Web development practices a few years on.